A well-worn inscription can be seen on the Agaskreberg Ogham Stone in Northern Ireland.Credit: Radharc Images/Alamy
Two studies based on more than 4,700 ancient human genomes have identified population movements that could help explain the origins and spread of Celtic and Germanic languages across Europe. The findings are consistent with some linguistic and archaeological theories, suggesting that migrations helped disperse the languages spoken by the ancestors of many Europeans today. The papers were published in Nature on November 4.
More than a billion people worldwide speak Germanic languages such as English, German and Dutch. Celtic languages, including Welsh, Irish and Gaelic, are spoken by only 2 or 3 million people, mainly in northern Europe.
Linguistic and archaeological evidence indicates that Celtic languages spread across Europe about 2,500 years ago, reaching areas that are now Italy, Spain and France. About 3,000 years ago, early Germanic speakers may have been concentrated in parts of northern Germany, Scandinavia and the Baltic coast.
“We wanted to know how this change happens: How does the range switch over time?” says Hugh McCall, a population geneticist at the University of Copenhagen and a co-author of both studies.
Linguists have previously suggested that migration contributed to the dispersal of Germanic and Celtic languages. But language can also spread without large-scale population movement. “You can easily adopt a new language without changing your genes,” says Guus Kroonen, a historical linguist at Leiden University in the Netherlands and a co-author of both studies.
A “mysterious” population
McCall, Kroonen and their colleagues searched for evidence of migration by examining changes in the ancestry of ancient populations. Their analysis combined newly sequenced genomes from more than 700 people with previously published data from more than 4,000 ancient humans.
The researchers identified a previously mysterious group that probably migrated from the Baltic region to Sweden about 4,000 years ago. The presence of this ancestry in Scandinavia and its later spread across Europe is consistent with earlier linguistic theories and archaeological evidence. “This is a good tracking dye for the dissemination of Germanic languages,” Kroonen says.
This ancestry was present in southern Scandinavia and northern Germany about 3,000 years ago, a period when linguistic evidence points to interactions with other language groups in the region. About 1,000 years later, people carrying this ancestry had moved into central, southern and western Europe, including the British Isles.
That pattern also matches linguistic and historical evidence for the spread of Germanic languages, including the first appearance of Germanic inscriptions known as runes about 2,000 years ago. The ancestry was present among the Anglo-Saxons of Britain, who spoke a Germanic language that was a predecessor of Old English.
Rök Stone has the longest runic inscriptions carved into stone, with more than 700 characters, and is believed to have been created by Vikings in what is now Östergötland, Sweden.Credit: JEPPE GUSTAFSSON/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty
The studies also revealed a surprising “reverse migration” of people from what is now Germany to Scandinavia. This movement coincided with the emergence of Old Norse, the predecessor of modern Scandinavian languages, and with Viking influence in the region.
In many cases, the expansion of Germanic languages took place in areas where Celtic languages had previously been dominant.
Researchers continue to debate where Celtic languages originated and how they became so widespread. Some linguists favor an Atlantic origin theory, which overlaps with the current concentration of Celtic-language speakers in the British Isles. Other models place the origins of Celtic farther east in Europe.
The genetic evidence does not by itself demonstrate that people carried a particular language as they migrated. Instead, it provides a way to test whether population movements are compatible with linguistic and archaeological accounts of how languages spread.
Source: www.nature.com